One of Ubisoft's Best Games | Watch_Dogs 2 Review

My Hot Take? I Enjoyed it More Than GTA:V

My Hot Take? I Enjoyed it More Than GTA:V

Game screenshot via Backloggd

I started my journey into Watch_Dogs 2 with mixed feelings: The game looked stunning, and I could feel myself dreaming of the possibilities that awaited me on the skill tree, and the ensuing plot… But then they introduced quirky characters, a million map markers, and Ubisoft's special blend of ‘gaming busywork’ that put a damper on my initial positive reactions. Not to mention, I wasn’t super thrilled about playing through yet another open world game.

But, I stuck with it, over the course of a few months. It wasn’t always the primary game I was playing. Eventually, I made it to where the credits rolled… and in a strange twist, I was upset that I had finished the game. I was stunned at how much I enjoyed my time in Watch_Dogs 2, and with just about every aspect of it, no less.

Those characters I was initially bothered with, had great voice actors, and after a while, I actually found them and the writing of the game quite endearing. The characters personalities specifically started to become believable at a certain turn of the plot, and I became attached to the whole team. I can’t say I’ve ever done such a 180 on a game before, usually I can get a sense of the trash characters and be like, “yep, spending the next 20 hours with you, that’s going to hurt.” But no, I really did change my mind. I even think the subplot characters were well done, and the main “villain” character has a fascinating blend of ominously foreboding characteristics that just worked for me. I am simply blown away by them all. The quality and believability cascades down from high level character and plot design into even the little conversations you hear in side-missions, and from the NPC pedestrians in the street. Every line of dialogue truly makes the world feel lived in, and alive.

I was also surprised with how much I enjoyed the overarching narrative. All of its pokes and jabs with the meta-narrative, big data, corporate warfare, and more, are really well done. There were a ton of missions that seemed engineered to get me to think about their potential real world counterparts, and for once in media, I found myself appreciating that. Some really aren’t a stretch of the imagination, either: Spoon-feeding specific advertisements to influence public opinion? Screwing around with the voting system? Selling your data to another big company that uses it for x, y, z? These might be overarching narratives for “quests” that fit in the world of Watch_Dogs 2, but they could also very well be real scenarios lifted from what is actually happening today. It was interesting to experience and think about beyond playing the game, and I appreciated the discourse I was able to have with other people in my life because of the sharp writing on that front.

So what about the gameplay? I thought the stealth scenarios were well-thought-out, and always posed their own unique and interesting challenges. Strategizing how to be stealthy to meet your objectives are how most missions will go, and they give you so many tools that you can feel overpowered doing so. There’s a healthy amount of tools in your kit, and upgrades to those tools that assist in that power fantasy of being some kind of super hacker. Until you’re caught, that is, then the swarms of enemies can gun you down in seconds if you’re not careful, reminding you perhaps that a hacker has dominance in the digital world more than the physical one... There are also a variety of missions that do not permit stealth, presenting a different type of challenge, so all around I found everything to be a nice, entertaining balance.

When you weren’t permitted to be in stealth, the gun play admittedly wasn’t my favorite. Lots of weapons don’t handle very well in this third-person perspective. Because of this, it caused me to be more creative in my approaches, using every tool I had available, which generally made the game more tense and interesting. About encounters, it’s worth noting that the AI of your enemies seems to be pretty intelligent. It’s not masterclass levels of smart, but enough to make them seem natural in their own settings, slightly predictable and unpredictable at the same time, acting how you might think a security detail may try and flush someone out, or look for a potential intruder.

Something I was not expecting is that the driving, is excellent, and definitely one of the highlights in this game. Drifting in particular feels amazing, and I have no idea how they fine-tuned that to be so good. I’m really glad that there are a lot of optional races and driving missions because driving overall is a real treat.

The music was surprisingly spectacular as well? The radio stations were well done too and always offered a good amount of variety for a lot of genres. Key tracks that play during main missions took the cake, though, and even caused me to find it on Spotify for some casual listening outside the game.

Controlling your RC’s and gadgets were sometimes a mixed bag, but overall everything was always intuitive. If it wasn’t, there’s always small button prompt instructions at the bottom of the screen. I had a period of time when I couldn’t play this game, but was able to jump right back into it no sweat because of those UI inclusions.

There were a few times I wish Markus would just “jump” instead of needing to be next to a wall within a certain height range to vault, and beyond that movement gripe, there were a few times the cover system betrayed me, but his movement was acceptable enough. I enjoyed the parkour flare that he had, even though some of the flashy animations take a touch longer than I’d like them to.

I really quite enjoyed the skill tree system. You get points by leveling up, which can be done by gaining “followers” from completing activities of just about any kind, of which there are a lot. You can do main quests, side quests, online quests, picture scavenger hunts, races, being a taxi driver, etc. So there’s a lot of variety for how you can get these “followers”. Sometimes you need a piece of “key data” in order to unlock a section of the skill tree, and those will lead you to places of the map where you might have to do a hacking puzzle or sneaking mission to be able to unlock them, and they’re usually a little more difficult than other random encounters. I liked it, the upgrades all felt like real meaningful additions to my kit, and obtaining them allowed me to explore different play styles with ease.

I thought that the “Dark Souls” style PvP invasions and other multiplayer events were ingenious. They would randomly happen, which always kept me on my toes, and in some, I’d have to hunt another player down, or escape a certain area or something. This is long after release, so I’m surprised that people are still playing enough to where that’s happening consistently, but man, it’s way fun. Helped me level up too! A fascinating mechanic that I didn’t think I would like because of my history with normal souls-games, but here in Watch_Dogs 2, I ended up really enjoying it.

Needs to be said, I am OBSESSED with the DEDSEC branding, whoever did all of that pixel art, mixed with the old-timey art, and the Windows 98 computer aesthetic, with the skeletons and the reaper, and the spooky Halloween kinda stuff… whatever team at Ubisoft came up with all that, they’re all absolute freakin’ genius’s and if I had the money, I’d hire all of them to do freelance stuff for me because it SPEAKS to me. I would buy DEDSEC merch in a heart beat. The art design for this game is incredible, and I can’t get over it.

Overall, I am so surprised, even honestly shocked, at how much I enjoy this game. After playing it, I can’t help but make comparisons to similar open world games such as GTA:V, which is probably Watch_Dog 2’s direct competitor. To each their own, but for me, after this experience, I personally prefer Watch_Dogs 2. The meta-narrative, the characters, the activities, the skill tree, environmental interactions, stealth, etc., these elements culminate into a great overall video game package. To explain further, I prefer Watch_Dogs 2’s more “gamified” approach to its game and world design, more than I did with GTA:V’s realistic, gritty take on the open world formula. Watch_Dogs 2 is not perfect, but definitely one of my favorites, and probably one of Ubisoft’s best of all time. I highly recommend it, and hope you check it out.

Originally published at https://backloggd.com.